MiniElectronGunReport.PDFVIP

Nathan Loewke UCLA Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Student Lynch Rocket Lab, Dartmouth College Summer, 2008 noloewke@ucla.edu “Mini” Electron Gun Report Purpose: To test electron guns in the Elephant vacuum chamber so that we as a team may obtain a means of testing our particle detectors used for the Cascades 2 project. The following is a recount of my personal efforts in finding a stable source of 0.0016pA of current, a full writeup on how to use the guns involved, as well as any useful data and information I have associated with them. History and Efforts: The point at which it all started was to test ten electron guns built during a physics lab for students here at Dartmouth College about a decade ago, chosen for this project due to their ease of testing and availability. Throughout testing on the bench (using a portable vacuum pump, vacuum tubing, and the same power supply that is currently used to power the guns inside the chamber, all borrowed from Ralph) I supplied 100V for the accelerating voltage, approximately 6V for the filament voltage, and ran at various pressures below 100 microns. After finding eight working guns from the group, a week or two went by before testing them inside the chamber. At that point I was unable to get a single gun to work at all; the filaments would get a little red in color, but would not emit a detectable amount of current, let alone the blue glow displayed on the lab test bench from earlier. Both filament and accelerating voltage inside the chamber were kept at the same values as on the bench, with pressures varying between 3060 microns. Efforts were made to increase voltages by varying amounts, resulting in nothing more than blown filaments. Following the chamber testing, those guns which were not used in the chamber (since the glass tubings, items nece